Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral... [read more]

The Democrats plan to announce their new national-security strategy for the 2006 election tomorrow, but Liz Sidoti at the AP reports that advance word has already leaked on the broad strokes. The message? Get tough on Osama while retreating in the face of his friends:

Congressional Democrats promise to "eliminate" Osama bin Laden and ensure a "responsible redeployment of U.S. forces" from Iraq in 2006 in an election-year national security policy statement.

In the position paper to be announced Wednesday, Democrats say they will double the number of special forces and add more spies, which they suggest will increase the chances of finding al-Qaida's elusive leader. They do not set a deadline for when all of the 132,000 American troops now in Iraq should be withdrawn.

"We're uniting behind a national security agenda that is tough and smart and will provide the real security
George Bush has promised but failed to deliver," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday.

Let's get this straight. The Democrats want to retreat against al-Qaeda forces assembled in Iraq in order to invade Pakistan, which is where Osama is most likely spending his time. They want to run away from the operational forces of AQ in a fashion that will remind all of them of Somalia, Beirut, and Teheran -- proving Osama right about American tenacity. Going after Osama is a terrific goal, but unless they have a better plan than to flood Pakistan with special-forces teams and spies that Pervez Musharraf will consider an act of war, then this policy is doomed to failure.

Once again, the Democrats will run on slogans instead of real strategy and tactics. They shrewdly selected Osama as a focal point, reminding the country that after over four years, the Bush administration hasn't captured the terrorist leader. Without a doubt, that has to rankle Americans; it rankles me. However, the Bush administration has isolated the AQ leadership and forced it back into Pakistan, as well as killed off or captured most of the operational leadership in the organization. We removed Saddam Hussein and transformed the geography of Southwest Asia, cutting off the terrorist lines of communication across the Middle East. The US forced the Islamofascists to engage our military on their turf instead of our civilians on ours.

What do the Democrats propose in its place? Disengagement from the only place where we can bring our military force to bear on Islamofascist terrorists, and another ignominious retreat just as we have to show strength in the region to back down the Iranian mullahcracy. The Democrats want to implement the Murtha plan, a strategy that will pull all our forces back to Kuwait, just in case they're needed to support the Iraqi security forces we will be abandoning to the terrorists we swore to fight. And when they are needed, what do we have to do? Redeploy in force across what will now be even more hostile territory after stripping ourselves of all the intelligence and recon we have while we're in place now.

Slogans and Osama-baiting may well work for the Democrats, but in the end we will still wind up fighting the same people we fight now. Instead of fighting them in Samarra and Tal Afar, we will fight them in San Francisco and Washington, DC. We may well fight them in Pakistan, as well as the nuclear-armed Pakistanis, if we openly invade their territory to chase Osama bin Laden. That's not a plan for victory; it's an incoherent fantasy.

Trackback Pings

» Democrats’ National Security Plank from Mike The Actuary's Musings
Via Captain’s Quarters comes this wire story:
Congressional Democrats vow to provide U.S. agents with the resources to hunt down Osama bin Laden and ensure a “responsible redeployment of U.S. forces” from
Iraq in 2006 in a national s... [Read More]